I flew the demonstrator down at the Zenith factory when I built the rudder there.  It was easy to control and the Jabiru 3300 had plenty of reserve power.  I would recommend that you go to HomebuiltHelp.com and buy the appropriate DVDs for the sections of the plane you're working on.  They were IMMENSELY helpful and they were not expensive.  I was totally confused when looking at the drawings and going through the builder's manual, but the DVDs brought it all together.

The rudder is probably the easiest component to build.  If you do it and then decide you don't want to go further, you can have a nice wall decoration.  Or maybe sell it. 

Richard,  Sounds like you're getting out of the airplane manufacturing business...hope it's not for good.   Anyway,  I didn't get any responses to my question about the gear uprights 6B11-3 being replaced with standard L angles for a taildragger.  Any reason you can think of other than weight savings that I couldn't use the ext angles that came with the kit?  I have to believe that there are more 601/650's that get converted to tailwheel than are built from scratch, so these uprights would already be in place.  AND, the rear one stays as an anchor point for the seat harness anyway.

 Thanks for your interest.

Hi Richard

Still looking.. are you selling?